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High hopes, expectations for Liberals, NDP in byelections

What’s happening on Monday in four ridings across Canada is a series of byelections that in many ways have become a test of strength for the opposition.

Liberals and New Democrats have been waging an intense contest to claim to the title of “government-in-waiting,” but the biggest tug-of-war has taken place in Toronto Centre, where Linda McQuaig of the NDP, left, and Liberal candidate Chrystia Freeland are battling to win Monday's byelection. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star)

Byelections are normally a chance for voters to vent their opinions about the government in power.

But what’s happening on Monday in four ridings across Canada is a twist on that old tradition — a series of byelections that in many ways have become a test of strength for the opposition.

The results could have a significant impact on the shape of politics to come in the next two years, revealing a clearer picture of who can lay the larger claim to the title of “government-in-waiting” leading up to the 2015 election.

Liberals and New Democrats have been waging an intense contest, but the biggest tug-of-war has taken place in Toronto Centre, long a Liberal stronghold but a riding where the NDP is keen to show it’s on the rise.

The Toronto Centre race has been made all the more notable, too, by the presence of so many journalists — international author and columnist Chrystia Freeland for the Liberals, former Star columnist Linda McQuaig for the NDP, and former Star reporter John Deverell for the Green Party.

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The Conservative candidate is Toronto lawyer Geoff Pollock.

Liberals and New Democrats have made abundantly clear how much they have invested in Toronto Centre, with party leaders Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau making multiple visits to the riding over the past few weeks.

“We’re spending a lot of time testing out different things — tactics and messages in these campaigns,” says Nathan Rotman, national director of the NDP. “This is very much using these campaigns to see what we should do, looking forward to 2015.”

In Toronto Centre, those NDP tactics have included some hard-edged, direct attacks on Freeland, including the many years she worked in the U.S., and her participation in layoffs at media organizations where she worked.

Freeland says this style of campaigning has been her biggest surprise since taking the leap from journalism to politics. For her, Monday is “an important moment for the country to figure out what is the alternative to the Conservative government.”

Sitting down for a brief chat after campaigning at a downtown retirement residence this week, Freeland said it boils down to a choice between “positive vision and positive politics . . . versus a negative, very personal, attack-style politics.”

The Liberal-NDP heat was on display last week during a televised debate on the TVO network, with McQuaig repeatedly reminding viewers that Freeland hadn’t lived in Canada for the past 10 years.

Freeland accused McQuaig of dividing Toronto Centre into two classes of citizens: long-time residents versus the many newcomers to the riding, with new arrivals at the “back of the bus” when it came to political rights.

McQuaig rejected the civil-rights comparison and continued to hammer away at Freeland’s absence from Canada.

During a testy exchange about Quebec-referendum politics, McQuaig said she wouldn’t take any lectures from someone who had been out of the country during the national unity debates of past decades.

This prompted an unexpected intervention by Pollock, the Conservative candidate, who said he was “frankly shocked” by what McQuaig had said to Freeland.

“I would have expected more from somebody who’s representing the party of (the late NDP leader) Jack Layton, who stood for civility and decency,” Pollock said.

New Democrats say the Liberals have been waging their own brand of dirty-war tactics, removing NDP signs in the Montreal riding of Bourassa, for instance.

The byelection in Brandon, Man., resembles the more familiar referendum on the government. The surprise here, however, is that Conservatives weren’t expected to have to fight hard for a riding they’ve held for all but a few of the past 60 years.

The Liberals are the unexpected threat here: Rolf Dinsdale, a former Conservative with a long family pedigree with the Tories, has high hopes of pulling off an upset in Brandon, where the Liberals scored just 5 per cent of the vote in the 2011 federal election.

The potential closeness of the Brandon contest was underlined this week when Harper entered the fray with a long letter to Brandon voters, attacking Trudeau and defending the Conservative record.

“On Nov. 25 you have a choice to make,” the letter stated. “It is a choice between our low-tax plan for jobs and growth, or Justin Trudeau’s high-tax agenda that will kill jobs and set families back; a choice between our tough on crime agenda that puts victims and our communities first, or the Liberal soft on crime approach.”

Trudeau fired back with his own letter to Brandon voters, slamming the prime minister’s “malicious, negative and false attacks.”

If the Conservatives are in trouble in this riding, and relegated to bit-player parts in Toronto and Montreal, that’s believed to be no small reflection of the PMO-Senate scandal that continues to explode in the headlines.

Rotman says the big surprise for him in these byelections is just how much people have been noticing Mulcair’s performance in the Commons throughout this saga; how many times the NDP leader has been praised for holding Harper’s feet to the fire.

“It’s not often the Ottawa bubble bursts into people’s minds that often, but it certainly is right now,” Rotman said.

Pollock, speaking to a local CBC morning show in Toronto on Friday, acknowledged the Senate scandal was playing out for him at the doorsteps.

“There are people who are disappointed,” the Tory candidate said. “And I share their disappointment.”

The Conservatives will be looking less for victory on Monday night than on staving off big losses. They’re expected to hold on to Provencher in Manitoba, seat of former justice minister Vic Toews.

The Liberals, meanwhile, are going to be dogged by high expectations beyond just holding on to seats last held by former Ontario premier Bob Rae in Toronto Centre, and Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre in Bourassa.

Trudeau assumed the leadership with high expectations of translating his personal popularity into a big bounce for the party, and putting it back in contention as the Conservatives’ chief opponent. That means many will expect the party to get more than the 41 per cent of the vote it received in both Toronto Centre and Bourassa in the 2011 election.

The NDP doesn’t necessarily need to win a seat to claim victory, Rotman says. The NDP will be encouraged, he says, if it gets more than the 30 per cent of the vote it received in Toronto Centre in 2011, and better than 32 per cent it received in Bourassa in the same election.

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